Uzbek photographer goes on trial for slander

Umida Akhmedova, 54, stands accused of portraying people in the ex-Soviet nation as backward and impoverished in her photographs.

TASHKENT, February 9, 2010 (AFP) - An award-winning Uzbek photographer went on trial for slander Tuesday after her work documenting the daily struggles of ordinary people in the Central Asian state landed her in hot water.

Umida Akhmedova, 54, stands accused of portraying people in the ex-Soviet nation as backward and impoverished in a collection of her photographs and a documentary film, both financed by the Swiss embassy in Tashkent.

"The case of Umida Akhmedova, charged with articles 139 part three and 140, is being heard now," Judge Bekzod Ermatov said at the opening of the session, an AFP reporter witnessed.

The charges of general slander and using the mass media to cause insult or slander carry a maximum sentence of two years in jail in Uzbekistan, which activists say uses its courts to silence critical voices.

Tashkent denies the accusations and defends its tough policing policies as necessary to combat Islamist groups seeking to overthrow the country's secular government.

An exhausted-looking Akhmedova, who turned up to Tashkent's Mirabad District Court wrapped in a flowing green silk coat against the bitter cold, pleaded not guilty to all charges.

"I feel bad. I am a creative person, and sitting in this courtroom like a criminal is very unpleasant," she told AFP.

"I feel like I am the one being slandered," she added.

Akhmedova put the blame for the trial not on the government, but on an expert panel it had convened to analyze her work.

The panel concluded in its report that the "photo album does not conform to aesthetic demands," a throwback to Soviet jargon, and that it would damage the country's "spiritual values".

The trial sets a chilling precedent for artists, said Surat Ikramov, head of the Initiative Group of Independent Human Rights Defenders of Uzbekistan.

"If things keep going like this, what will happen tomorrow to painters and composers?" he asked. "It is absurd."

Akhmedova's works -- a book of more than 100 photographs of rural life titled "Woman and Man: From Dawn till Night" and a documentary film about women's rights -- dealt with topics sensitive to the Uzbek government, which carefully guards its image abroad.

The film tackles the tradition that young women must be chaste until marriage and is based on the story of a girl driven from the bridegroom’s home in shame.

The trial was the first official confirmation of the charges, as authorities in Tashkent rarely comment on elements of criminal cases to the press.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous state, has been repairing ties with the United States and the European Union, which had frayed over their criticism of Tashkent's handling of an uprising in the city of Andijan in 2005.

For Brussels and Washington, Uzbekistan is a tempting ally in a region increasingly vital to NATO operations against the Taliban, given the country's strategic border with war-wracked Afghanistan.

Uzbekistan believes that the value of its cooperation on security issues outweighs western governments' concerns over its handling of domestic issues, said Annette Bohr of the Chatham House foreign policy think tank in London.

"They are fully aware that the steps that they take domestically don't really have much of an impact on the foreign policies of the EU and the United States towards them," she told AFP.

"We're past this 'values versus interests debate', really. And they have every intention of treating their internal opposition in the way they deem fit."